Daisy Eagan: No Exit

Several months after winning an L.A. Weekly Theater Award trophy for Supporting Female in last seasons production of Michael John LaChiusas musical, The Wild Party, at the Blank Theatre, Daisy Eagan mentioned that she was ready to leave performing. When I told her Id like to write about what led her to this decision, she hedged and asked for time to think about it.

Eagan was 11 when she received a Tony Award for her performance in The Secret Garden. Shes still the youngest recipient of that coveted prize, which has done nothing to bolster her self-confidence. It might even have done damage.

When I got the Tony, my mother told me if I ever got a big head, shed pull me out of the business, Eagan says. She had good intentions; she didnt want me to be a brat. But Im a New York Jew, so Im already hard on myself.

Even now, one bad review in a stream of positive notices can set her reeling, she says, which is why she tries not to read any of them.

Eagans crisis of confidence is perennial. She wobbles between believing in herself and believing the worst of what others say about her.

I have a preoccupation with what other people think of me, Eagan explains. I have to say that any actor who doesnt care what other people think of them isnt telling the truth. We perform for people. We want people to enjoy our work.

This may be true, but its also why, for years, Eagan has been standing at a precipice, between remaining an actor and quitting. And whenever shes about to leap off into a new career, local theater woos her back.

During her 20-year career, Eagan has accrued an impressive list of credits in TV and film (she moved here from New York in 2003), on Broadway and off-Broadway (Ensemble Studio Theatre, Playwrights Horizons), and in regional theaters (South Coast Repertory and La Jolla Playhouse). She also stepped in as a last-minute replacement in Sunset Boulevard at the Pantages. And though, like most actors, her employment as a performer has been both glittering and sporadic, she says its mostly the Industry that keeps rattling her confidence  and even her desire to continue acting  while the theater has come to her rescue, providing comfort and confidence, particularly the theater in Southern California.

I came out here to do TV and film, and Ive done more theater in L.A. than I ever did in New York, she says. I also found the theater community out here to be more embracing, warmer. The New York theater community got to be a little cold, maybe because I went through such a difficult time there, and I didnt find much support from people who were happy to be around me when I was a star on Broadway, and less happy to be around me when I wasnt.

Yet Eagan says issues of professional identity are tougher here: You tell people youre an actor, they dont even blink. But I want to say I really am an actor. I work. But everyones an actor. Eventually, when I was in bars and people would ask me what I did, Id lie and say I was a rocket scientist.

Then theres the dismissive attitude toward local theater by the Industry itself.

Ive been through six agents out here, Eagan says, and couldnt get one of them to see any of the plays I was in  not even The Wild Party, which was in Hollywood with free tickets.

To keep the rent paid when auditions werent panning out into roles, Eagan has worked all kinds of jobs here, including telemarketing for a prepay psychic hot line.

If youve been an actor for 20 years, being a telemarketer is easy, she says. The people around you are getting upset over all the rejection, and I say, Oh, please... 

That job didnt last long. Eagan was fired after she wrote a scathing blog about the company and the customers, which, of course, got read by a company exec. I was lucky they didnt sue me, she says.

Last month, Eagan was again dangling on the edge of quitting, her dissatisfaction stemming mostly from the long shadow the Industry casts here. My decision [to leave] is largely based on experiences in L.A. Its a totally different environment out here [from New York], she says, referring to film/TV casting calls, not based on ability but on factors that are beyond your control. To be frank, Ive lost faith in my ability at this point. Its hard for me to think about auditioning, because I worry theyre going to find out that basically I have no talent. How many times can a person be told no and still keep going?

On one occasion, however, Eagan was the one who said no  to the Mark Taper Forum, no less, which had asked her to understudy five roles.

Maybe its just my perception, Eagan explains, but once you reach a certain level, its awkward to take things like understudy jobs, because it makes people wonder whats happened to your career, rather than people thinking youre just an actor like everyone else. My career started so easily. I reached such a height so quickly, thats all I knew, thats what I expected. So when I got older and it wasnt so easy, it was hard to come to terms with that. Im just realizing this now. Sometimes I wish I could start over and be totally anonymous.

At age 6, after seeing her father perform in a play, Eagan decided she wanted to act in theater.

I was not very popular in school; I thought of acting as a way to get out, to be somebody else, she says. I auditioned for a musical at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and I got the lead. The next audition was for Les Miz and I got that.

Two years after her Tony, Eagans mother died, sending the child on a whirlwind of grief and confusion.

I was mad. I was rebelling and sabotaging myself, she explains. Here I was in New York, without any training, up against a lot of girls who had been in singing and dancing lessons since they were 3. I didnt know a work ethic. So I was dealing with being a teenager, and I figured theres a conspiracy, nobody wants to hire me. Its only recently I figured, well, maybe I wasnt hirable.

In 2005, again contemplating throwing in the towel, Eagan got the call to do The Wild Party.

Thats happened quite a few times. I say I cant do this anymore, and then Im offered a great part that reminds me of why I love to do it, she tells me. And its always in the theater, never TV or film. If I can guest-star on a TV show, Im like, okay, its nice to work, obviously, but it doesnt do the same thing that theater does. Im not caught up in a dream of being famous, just comfortable, where I dont have to worry about paying the rent.

I love to do theater, but I dont like being broke, Eagan adds. Its hard to go from being the youngest actress on Broadway to not making any money. I wasnt trained for that. But Im learning. And its humbling. Its teaching me about flesh and blood. This business is not so much about talent but perseverance and thick skin. I have the perseverance, but my skin is thinning  which Im working on, but its tough.